Cooking for One - A book for the bereaved offering recipes, wisdom, love and hope

A Suffolk funeral director is calling on people who have lost their loved ones to pass on their wholesome recipes and stories in a new book to be launched next summer.

The book ‘Cooking for One’ is to encourage bereaved people to cook and learn new skills in the kitchen and be inspired to share the food they may have once shared with their loved ones or a new wholesome recipe they created after they lost someone.

The book is currently being compiled by Rosedale Funeral Home director, Simon Beckett-Allen and will feature inspirational quotes, pictures and poetry as well as tips on self-care and wellbeing alongside offering wisdom, love and hope.

Mr Beckett-Allen told homecare.co.uk: "With this book, we can bring a few stories about people’s journeys and how they’ve coped with losing someone.

"When someone loses a husband, wife or partner after a long relationship their whole world is turned upside down. They don’t want to eat; they have no appetite.

“There are lots of people out there who have lost somebody and particularly the older generation where you will get a gentleman who have never cooked.

“We are looking for people who have stories they can tell us and what we will do is phone them up or we can go and see them depending on where they are and I want to compile their recipes and stories."

‘I feel closer to my sister standing in the kitchen than I do standing at her graveside’

Cooking for One is in memory of his sister Sarah who died suddenly in 2015. Mr Beckett-Allen said: “I lost my mum, my dad, my brother and sister all in four years. When she died, I had all of her recipes and we gave copies to people for a donation to one of the [cancer] charities she used to support.”

Mr Beckett-Allen’s favourite recipe that Sarah cooked was her chocolate brownie recipe. “She would never ever tell anyone what the recipe was. Eventually, my wife pestered her for the recipe and Sarah agreed to give it to her but refused to tell her how long she needed to cook it for.”

Mr Beckett-Allen wanted to build an outside kitchen in memory of his sister. “I took it from her husband. He was left with this kitchen in their house. They had an industrial kitchen on one side of the house, and he got to the point where he thought he couldn’t stand there looking at because it reminded him so much of Sarah. He needed to move so I bought the cooker, the fridge, units and all the bits and pieces.”

“I incorporated all of Sarah’s bits and pieces into it and it just became known as 'Sarah’s kitchen'. I feel closer to my sister standing in the kitchen than I do standing at her graveside.

“When [I’m] cooking, I wonder what she would have thought about that or would she be pleased with this. I miss her, I miss her dreadfully.”

’People who have lost a partner find it difficult to prepare meals for just one person and the importance of food and cooking can diminish’

The ex-electrician and his wife started the funeral company 14 years ago where they also run a bereavement group at the funeral home.

“We found that a lot of funeral homes were treating the bereaved just like numbers. So, we decided to run a bereavement group where we got people together and what we really do is facilitate this.

“Over the years of running bereavement support groups, we have learned at Rosedale that many people who have lost a partner find it difficult to prepare meals for just one person and the importance of food and cooking can diminish.

“They felt guilty about feeling happy or they couldn’t get the person off their mind, they didn’t know how to start again. The funeral has gone, and everyone has stopped calling and you can almost hear people saying, ‘come on pull yourself together’. [Grieving] can go on for the rest of your life and all [you can] do is cope with it if you’re lucky.

“Sometimes we get people who just sit there and say nothing, they have just said to us afterwards they’ve enjoyed being there knowing that they’re not on their own, that the feelings they are having are just the same as everyone else."

The bereavement group do not give professional counselling to people however, they can signpost the most vulnerable to speak to a professional counsellor.

“The bereavement group try to get people to open up a little bit and know they are not on their own. We have a room and people come and talk about this and one of the things we notice is how they couldn’t bring themselves to cook. Lots of people have similar stories.

“We are facilitating like-minded people. Some people might come to us for the twelve weeks of the year and then they come back the following year and help other bereaved people.”

Mr Beckett-Allen will be contributing his favourite recipe to the book but he wants to see what everyone else submits before adding his. However, his favourite food is the traditional cooked English breakfast with a “butcher’s sausage.”

Mr Beckett-Allen is going to cook every recipe that is sent to him in 'Sarah’s kitchen'. He said: “I would like to cook it with the person who has sent the recipe to me.

I would like to do it in 'Sarah’s kitchen' and just chat with the person to understand those tips that their loved one used to do.”

If you would like to share your story and recipe please click here and submit before Friday 17 January 2020.